Day 17 - A Song That You Hear Often on the Radio

I think I've talked before about how I hardly ever listen to AM or FM radio when I'm in the car. Hockey games, baseball games, and that's about it. When we got our car a couple of years ago, it came loaded with a three-month trial of XM. We liked it and ended up keeping it.

The whole idea of XM is genius. It works the way that I think the 500-channel TV universe was originally supposed to — station after station of themed programming. Feel like listening to just music from the 70s? Flip to 70s on 7. Baseball talk? MLB Network Radio has you covered. Show Tunes? There's On Broadway.

The result, though, is that I almost never hear current music. Sure, there are Hits 1 and 20 on 20 if you want top 40 radio but, for the most part, why would I bother? I'm not going to like most of it, and why sit through all the dreck for the one or two nuggets of gold? Tangentially, why is 20 on 20 on channel 3? Would channel 20 not make more sense?

All that's to say that today's post is heavily affected by my listening bias against recent music.

If Erin drove the car last, odds are the radio's on The Blend, XM's "lite pop hits" channel. Or she'll have been blaring a home-burned rap CD, but that's another story. If I'm in control of the radio, more often than not it'll be tuned to Lithium, their 90s alternative channel. So I'm getting lots of Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Live, Faith No More… well, you get the idea.

And I'm getting lots of Smashing Pumpkins, especially "1979". Seems like any time I spend any significant amount of time on the road, it'll come on. Whoever does their programming must really love it.

Shifting gears, 1989 is woefully underrepresented in the 'years ending in 9' music genre. "Summer of '69", "1979", and then a giant leap to "1999". I'm sure there's a song with 1989 in the title out there somewhere, but it's lagging the field badly.

30 Songs in 30 Days

Your Favourite Song - "American Pie" by Don McLean

Your Least Favourite Song - "Hotel Room Service" by Pitbull

A Song That Makes You Happy - "Legend of a Cowgirl" by Imani Coppola

A Song That Makes You Sad - "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley

A Song That Reminds You of Someone - "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga

A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere - "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads

A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event - "Say it Ain't So" by Weezer

A Song That You Know All the Words To - "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf

A Song That You Can Dance To - "Babe" by Styx

A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep - "One For My Baby" by Frank Sinatra

A Song From Your Favourite Band - "Unconditional" by jacksoul

A Song From a Band You Hate - "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles

A Song That is a Guilty Pleasure - "Snoopy's Christmas" by The Royal Guardsmen

A Song That No One Would Expect You to Love - "One" by Metallica

A Song That Describes You - "Still Crazy After All These Years" by Paul Simon

A Song That You Used to Love But Now You Hate - "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond